Tony Cragg - Research

My recent work is based around 'Tony Cragg's' exhibition 'A Rare Category of objects' at Yorkshire park, therefore I have researched the main characteristics of his work.

-  Relates between people and the material world
-Yorkshire sculpture park sculptures are abstract and figurative
- Work explores human form. It relates itself with why we look like we do and why we are as we are.
-Tony looks at ‘rare categories of objects’. 
- His gallery at yorkshire Sculpture park is a garden gallery 
- Craggs process of thought/ manual making always starts with drawings
- Makes his sculptures by hand Abstract 
- Tony Cragg's exhibition at Yorkshire sculpture park is called 'A Rare Category of Objects.'
'Taking a blank sheet, he sketches a nose, a mouth and an eye. Then, suddenly, the pencil marks proliferate and the drawing explodes into life as a pair of richly layered, slightly skewed human profiles, one male, one female. “I have no idea where a drawing might lead,” Cragg tells us. “It’s a journey — an adventure.”
https://www.ft.com/content/457ee070-fe81-11e6-8d8e-a5e3738f9ae4
Cragg’s sculpture ‘Stack’ 1975 addresses form. It is made up of found materials and objects common in everyday life. Through his careful selection of material the form of which his work has taken on, is already largely determined.[1] This sculpture was put together using simple techniques such as stacking, splitting and crushing. Cragg has carefully arranged the materials in multiple layers to form a large geometrical like structure, the layering suggests a link with the earth’s geological structure, for example much like the layers of the earth. It demonstrates how both natural and man-made elements are incorporated into the layers of the earth and shaped over time. The colour palette Cragg has chosen for ‘Stack’ also suggests a link to the layers of the earth. It is made up of mainly greys and browns, as he is prone to using certain colour groups within his work. Each layer is densely packed together and the scale of the sculpture is large. The large scale of the sculpture is important as it gives new meaning to the materials used.

https://ashchad.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/essay-tony-cragg-stack-1975-form-paragraph/

Background to Cragg's career according to the https://ysp.co.uk/media/press-releases/tony-cragg-a-rare-category-of-objects website:

'Cragg’s extraordinary career has its roots in a fascination for, and exploration of, the possibilities of the material world, which he considers to be ‘the huge storeroom [in which] lie the keys to essential processes and explanations of our existence’. Cragg’s artistic practice developed from drawings he made to document experiments whilst working as a lab technician at the National Rubber Producers Research Association (1966–68). He went on to study at London’s Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal College of Art and during two summer vacations worked nightshifts in a foundry that manufactured components for engines. The combination of art and the experience of the physical transformation of materials through industrial processes is the cornerstone of Cragg’s practice.'

'With the support of his studio, Cragg makes his sculptures by hand, each evolution of thought inspiring the next. His intuition to sort and categorise, evident in his childhood fossil collection, is expressed in the significant early stacked series in which the accumulated content of his studio, including stones, wood, and books, are formed into geological-like sculptures.'